WASHINGTON – The company behind the Keystone XL pipeline has a message for Nebraska landowners resisting the project: the sweet financial offers are going, going, gone.
TransCanada Corp. says today is the deadline for holdout landowners to sign easement deals allowing the pipeline onto their property — and any deals they make in the future will be less generous.
That announcement comes as the pipeline battle enters a new phase.
Until now, offers to landowners have been skyrocketing, but the effort to entice landowners into agreements may now be taking a back seat to other concerns.
The Obama administration has delayed making a decision on whether to approve the project while a Nebraska court decides whether resistant landowners should be forced to allow the pipeline through their property.
About one-fifth of Nebraskans who live on the route are holding out — and, while the company says it still wants to reach deals with them, it won’t be offering the same sums any longer.